


The Painted Lady

by Sosostris



Series: that which you fought [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Batman Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24369394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sosostris/pseuds/Sosostris
Summary: “Remember the stories Gran-Gran told us when we were kids?” she asks breathlessly, like she doesn’t want a response. “When the spirits blessed a few with the abilities to serve their nations?”
Series: that which you fought [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757080
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	The Painted Lady

“What do you mean, the case is closed?” Katara demanded, face tight with anger. “Sokka gave a statement to your lieutenant and everything—and you heard what the boy said! ‘The wire was cut.’”

Dad—no, Superintendent Hakoda; it was morning, and he was in his uniform—passed a hand over his eyes with a sigh, in the same tired gesture that his son had inherited.

“This didn’t come from me, little wave,” he said, as gently as he could. “I was on the scene, but the investigation isn’t mine. Lieutenant Jee is the detective inspector on this, and I have no grounds to overrule his conclusion, not without witnesses or evidence.”

“Oh,” said Katara, her brows knitting together the way their mother’s did, “and the investigation lasted not even a night, is that it? Acrobat monk falls to his death—after being an acrobat all his life, apparently—and the police call it a day before the headline’s even printed?”

“This didn’t come from me,” Hakoda said again, although his heart was sinking. He knew it was true that the mayor’s office could decide with alacrity the outcome of investigations in Republic City.

Before he could think of something more placatory to add, Katara was on her feet, pushing so roughly at the breakfast table that prune juice sloshed over the rim of her glass, despite Gran-Gran’s protests.

“You’ve got to admit, Dad,” Sokka said quietly, when the sound of her stomping footsteps had faded. “I’m sure your hands are tied, but it doesn’t look too great from where we are.”

The observation, which left Hakoda in a silence either abashed or equally furious, was marred only slightly by Katara’s abandoned coconut pancake, now stuffed in Sokka’s mouth.

The starchy dough had cooled to the point of becoming a serious masticatory effort, which was probably why Sokka failed to immediately reach the next correct thought: _Katara doesn’t give up._

***

There were plenty of traits that Sokka admired about his baby sister.

She didn’t give up, that one he already knew.

She cared about people, too, which was why she wanted to be a physician.

But all of those together meant that Katara, when she wanted to, played the long game. It was a damned shame she could be so tight-lipped about it.

The proof, or warning, of her seal-doggedness came late one evening—early the next morning, actually, as was their family’s wont—while he slouched in the study over a legal essay on tribal fishing rights (let it not be said that Sokka was not a man of culture).

Katara came up from behind so soundlessly that he yelped at the thump of the envelope on the desk.

“There!” she exclaimed, smugness colouring the word.

Not even half-suspecting—maybe one-quarter suspecting?—Sokka fumbled with the little string that held the manila folder shut. A black-and-white photograph slipped out first, and he frowned as he tried to identify the grainy image. A thin wire, frayed. Burnt through, or perhaps cut?

“There,” Katara said again. “The boy was right. Monk Gyatso didn’t slip.”

“How do you know he was supposed to have slipped?” Sokka asked dumbly.

She reached over his shoulder and shook out a thicker sheaf: “It says so in Lieutenant Jee’s report.”

“Katara, _where_ did you get this?”

“I checked it out of the library. No, seriously, where do you think?”

It took him a second to catch up, before he forced his gaze to meet hers and choked out in a low voice, “What in ten hells, Katara. You’ve been breaking into _police headquarters_?”

Her lower lip was thrust out into a pout, a dare to challenge her.

“Only once,” she said, hastily continuing, “Dad sometimes brings paperwork home too, you know.”

Okay, it was hard not to get stuck on the _only once_ , but the entire situation was so surreal—so _Katara_ , Sokka thought, in a flash. He felt strangely calm, as though there was no reprimand you could make—and there probably wasn’t—when you found out that your baby sister was burgling the police. ****

“And what are you going to do now?” he asked.

Katara looked a little lost at that, and suddenly as young as her fifteen years.

She shook her head, hair loopies bobbing with the gesture.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll figure it out.”

***

It’s three years later that Sokka and Katara stay up long past suppertime, toasting to the adults they’ll soon become. Dad begged off long ago, with the wry remark that he has work in the morning, and Gran-Gran is—Sokka winces reflexively— _out on a date, don’t wait up_ with Mr Pakku.

So it’s just the two of them, comfortably stretched out on the floor cushions with a drink each in hand and wild boasts about what awaits. Sokka has one more year to go before he graduates from the police academy, and in a few more months, Katara will enter the undergraduate medical faculty.

It’s a plan! He _adores_ plans, especially when they work out.

Then Katara says, interrupting his maudlin musings unusually severely,“Sokka, I’ve figured it out.” ****

She pauses, like she would ages ago, when, with a mien far too serious for a toddler, she hatched schemes that she needed Sokka to present to their parents. Sokka hasn’t seen this in a long time.

Her decision to enrol as a healer had been delivered with such finality that everyone else in the little village of their block could rustle up only the most token objections about how Dad’s a cop; Ma’s a cop; their step-mother, Ma’s wife Malina, over in Ba Sing Se, is also a cop; and Sokka is _going_ to be a cop, and _—okay, okay, if you’re really sure, then we can’t stop you._

Now, doubt clouds her face, and it wrenches at him.

Now, she says, trying the words out, “I could help people, the way you do. I know I could. But I also need to know that you won’t turn me in, even if you won’t actually back me up.”

Sokka makes a murmuring noise in the back of his throat. It’s a sound she recognises: _Go on_ and _no promises_ and _I love you_ and _I won’t hide any bodies… probably_ , all in one.

Katara clasps her hands together, her fingers twisting, and starts off on an unexpected note.

“Remember the stories Gran-Gran told us when we were kids?” she asks breathlessly, like she doesn’t want a response. “When the spirits blessed a few with the abilities to serve their nations?”

She sets her shot glass down carefully, and ushers him—shoves him, really—to the small room at the back of the house that they share, gingerly pulling aside the curtain that covers her cupboard.

“Okay, _what_ in ten hells?” Sokka breathes, when he sees what’s hanging from the rail.

A thin, light blouse, a full skirt over leggings, fascinator and veil. The legend creeps up from his memory like the weak polar sun over the horizon: _the Flamebird of Kandor_.

He shouldn’t agree to this. Doesn’t in fact ( _for now_ , a traitorous voice whispers inside). But he will not stop her, and he doesn’t tell a soul. She’s his sister, and she does what’s right, so he would never.

It all started with the boy in the circus that night and—the knowledge twists inside of Sokka’s gut—now Katara is taking another dangerous step—off an ice shelf, off a rooftop—into their future.

**Author's Note:**

> I had planned to write “the one where she’s Katara Gordon,” brilliant, gorgeous, badass librarian of my dreams. I have no idea how Bette Kane slipped out instead.
> 
> Sokka, on the other hand, was always going to be Nightwing. Comes with own mullet, even.


End file.
